Transfer Credit Agreements: These agreements indicate which courses will transfer for university credit, at a minimum. Courses that are approved for transfer credit do not necessarily count toward general education or a major at the university. Mission College courses that transfer for credit to California State University or University of California (also known as the UC Transfer Course Agreement – UC TCA) are identified in the Mission College catalog at the end of the course descriptions, or on the ASSIST web site.

Course-to-Course Agreements: The purpose of a course-to-course agreement is to determine if a specific course taken at one college will satisfy a requirement at another college. For instance, if a community college course is approved as “comparable” to a university course, it may fulfill the same general education and/or major preparation requirements that the university course does.

Major Preparation: Major Preparation agreements specify courses that meet the lower division requirements for a major at a four-year college or university.

General Education:

CSU General Education-Breadth (CSU GE-B): CSU GE-B is a general education curriculum that identifies courses that students may take to fulfill the lower division GE requirements for the CSU campuses.

Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum (IGETC): (IGETC) is a general education program which community college students can use to satisfy lower-division general education requirements at the CSU or UC systems without the need to take additional lower division general education requirements after transfer. IGETC is often not recommended for high-unit majors, like engineering.

University of California Transfer Admissions Eligibility Course List: Completing the UC Transfer Admissions Eligibility Course list is the minimum requirement for admission eligibility; it does not guarantee admission nor does it guarantee that a student will be prepared and competitive for admission to a specific UC campus or major.

Campus-Specific General Education: Students may opt to follow the general education pattern specific to a university campus. Articulation agreements also exist between Mission College courses and general education requirements at private colleges and universities.

Not always...All articulated courses are transferable, but most transferable courses are not articulated.

A transferable course is a course taken at a community college that can be used for unit credit at a university. The fact that a course is transferable does not necessarily mean it applies toward your major or other academic goal. It simply means the university will give a certain number of units as credit for completing the course. The units could count toward the total needed to transfer or graduate; they could be units you need for general education or your major; they could apply toward some other academic goal.

An articulated course is a course taken at one college or university that can be used to satisfy specific subject matter requirements, such as lower-division major preparation or general education requirements at another college or university. Sequences of courses can also be articulated, and sometimes it may take more than one community college course to take the place of a single university course, or sometimes a single college course can be used in place of more than one university course.

You can't tell if courses are articulated by looking at course numbers, titles, or even descriptions in the catalogs. The only way you can tell if and how a course is articulated is by looking at an articulation agreement (formal agreements between two campuses). Articulation agreements in ASSIST are developed and entered into the ASSIST database by the receiving campus (the university campus in our examples). Each university campus is responsible for all of the details of its own articulation.

To use ASSIST to see if a course is articulated:

Go to www.assist.org.

Choose either the college or the university campus on the first screen.

On the second screen, choose the other institution.

On the next screen, you can choose a major, a department, or General Education, depending on how the university formats its articulation.

Not all university campuses provide articulation with every college or for all of their majors or departments. Many university campuses concentrate on their primary feeder colleges and their most popular transfer majors. That doesn't mean you can't transfer. It means that you need to talk directly to an admissions advisor and a departmental advisor at the university.

Each university campus will have different articulation with different colleges, even when they are colleges in the same district. For example, Mission College and West Valley College have different articulation agreements, even though they're sister colleges. You also can't assume that a community college course will be accepted the same way at different campuses of the same university system. UCLA, for example, does not automatically use a course the same way that UCSD does.

Mission College maintains written articulation or course transfer agreements with many colleges and universities. These agreements are approved by the transfer college faculty and specify how courses will be accepted at the transfer institution. Students who wish to transfer need to become familiar with articulation agreements found on the many websites listed below (note: transfer students are strongly advised to speak with a Mission College counselor and visit the Transfer Center):

ASSIST (Articulation System Stimulating Interinstitutional Student Transfer) is the official repository of transfer information for California's public college and universities. ASSIST maintains current articulation agreements that identify which courses can be applied for elective, general education and major preparation credit when a student transfers from a California Community College to a CSU or UC campus. The ASSIST web site offers easy access to a single database.

CSU General Education Pattern Of the 48 total semester units needed to complete the CSU General Education-Breadth requirements, 39 lower division units can be completed at CCSF. The remaining 9 units must be completed in upper-division coursework at the CSU campus. CCSF courses that have been approved for meeting the lower division general education requirements for all California State University campuses can be found on ASSIST. This information has also been summarized on the CSU General Ed Worksheet.

IGETC Pattern Transfer students can follow the IGETC curriculum to satisfy lower-division general education requirements at the CSU or many colleges in the UC system (generally not advised for Engineering or high-unit science majors). CCSF courses that have been approved for IGETC can be found on ASSIST. This information has also been summarized on the IGETC Worksheet.

Private and Out-of-State Articulation Information Information on how Mission College courses transfer to some independent colleges and universities can be found on the Independent Colleges and Universities page of the articulation website. For more information about transfer of credit, visit the specific college website.